First Moments
by asdf123150
Summary: The first time they met, she'd never heard of him before, nor did she particularly want to get to know him. That was soon to change. HaruTaka, Valentine's Day AU growing old fic. Fluff?


**A/N**: So, yay. Uh... Happy Valentine's day, guys! I barely finished this on time. It was supposed to be this really sweet HaruTaka romance, but...um. Yeah. ^-^

Basically, a few days ago, I was like, "I wanna write something, but I don't wanna work on any of my long fics...soooo... Let's write a Valentine's day oneshot!" Which ended up being ten thousand words. Yeeeeah. Real productive.

Does this qualify as fluff? I'm not too sure.

Anyway. Enjoy?

* * *

**THE FIRST MEETING**

They met in grade nine.

Science class. Except there was some sort of schedule conflict - the secretaries really needed to learn how to use their damn computers - and so the grade nines ended up with six fifty-student science classes and two eight-student classes, spread evenly across both semesters.

One of those eight-student classes was cancelled because all its students changed their courses to enter the now fifty-plus student classes. Of the eight students in the other class, one transferred schools, one was a prolific skipper, and four had known each other for years.

That left her and him.

A girl with a hideous temper, who didn`t have a friend to her name, and who was - so it seemed to the rest of the world - more than happy to stay that way.

And the sweetest boy in perhaps all the school, friendly to a fault, with no fear of temper tantrums and cynical outlooks on life.

He initiated it, of course. It couldn't have gone any other way.

"Nice to meet you!" he chirped to her that first day of semester one, slipping into the seat beside her. There were five minutes left until the end of the period; the teacher was off getting water, and the other four students were chatting on one side of the classroom. "My name's Haruka Kokonose. Do you want to be friends?"

She glared at him and snapped, "Who the hell still says that anymore?"

His smile never faltered. "I do, apparently. Is that a yes?"

"If I say no, will you leave me alone?"

"Nope!"

"No."

He laughed and bumped shoulders with her. The tiny, casual contact shocked her so much she almost fell straight off her stool and onto the ground. "You're funny. What's your name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

That phrase was perhaps a little sharper than it was meant to be, mainly because she was irritated at almost having her brains dashed out by the tiled floor.

He stared at her blankly, and she noticed how his hands tightened into little fists in the confines of his elbows.

Had she frightened him off? She hadn't meant to. She'd just meant to - she didn't know what she'd meant to do, but she'd meant to tease him a little, nothing more. She hadn't actually wanted to scare him off. Okay, maybe she had, a _little_, but mostly, she'd-

"Well... That's the kind of thing friends know about each other."

She couldn't help it; she snorted. "That's the kind of thing _acquaintances_ should know about each other, forget _friends. Friends_ should know things like, what hobbies the other person likes, and allergies, and favorite authors, or bands, or-"

"Okay, then. Mysterious-name girl, what's your favorite hobby?"

She blushed and turned away from his silly, wide grin. "Why should I tell you that when you don't even know my name?"

"Okay, then. Mysterious-hobby girl, what's your name?"

The bell rang. She scooped her bag off the ground, glared at him - he still had a foolishly cheerful grin on his face; why? - and snarled, "I'm Takane Enomoto, and I really don't know why you care what hobbies I've got."

And she turned and stormed out the classroom, and hoped, just a little, that he'd sit beside her next class.

He did.

**THE FIRST DATE**

They became friends. Wasn't that obvious enough?

Even though they only met at the start of high school, they soon became inseparable. Well, not _inseparable_, but extremely close. He helped her study; she helped him with his art. "You have such a good eye," he used to praise her. "You should've become an artist yourself."

Of course, that praise only made her blush and stutter and swat him on the arm, but he never stopped grinning and saying it.

It was during exam week that he found out about her gaming. She never meant for him to find out; it was her secret, guilty obsession, and she would've been ashamed of herself for it if she hadn't loved it so much.

It was an accident, of course. He came to her house to help her study for her upcoming math exam - her parents let him in without thinking - and he came up to her room, only to find her in the middle of a particularly intense, gory shootout against some sort of bloated, disfigured half-human half-wolf undead creature.

"_Die_, you ugly, monstrous, hideous beast!" she shouted at her computer screen, thumbs dancing furiously across her controller, pumping bullet after bullet into the monster, whipping out a flamethrower, setting the beast on fire, then blasting even more bullets at him. "You stupid little monster - why don't you just _die_ already and let me beat the level! Stupid boss! Die - die - die - _no don't you dare use your ultimate attack I swear to God if you use your ultimate attack I will rip your head off and stuff your ugly giant arms down your larynx and esophagus and I will burst your goddamn liver and pull all your veins out of your body and see just how many kilometres a beast like - GODDAMMIT YOU JUST HAD TO DO THAT - _health, health, dammit, I need more health - _YOU LITTLE MONSTER NO I WON'T_ -"

Her video screen turned red, and amid the mountains of gore and blood flooding the screen, Haruka could faintly make out flailing arms, a tilting sky, and Takane threw her controller to the floor with an enormous, furious yell. "_Dammit! Not again!_"

"...Um..."

She whirled around to glare at him, cheeks flushed with fury and excitement, shoulders up and stiff, begging for a fight. "_What?!_ What do _you_ want fr-"

And then, just like that, she fell silent.

"...H... Haruka...?"

He waved nervously at her. "Yep, it's me. You wanted help with math?"

Her face had already been bright red before he spoke. Now, with every word that left his mouth, her cheeks grew exponentially redder, and redder, and redder, until she seemed like a tomato about to burst.

"G-G-G-G-Get _out!_" she stammered, bursting to her feet, spinning him around, thrusting him out of her room. "G-G-G- W-Who even let you in?! Y-Y-Y..."

"T-Takane?" he exclaimed in surprise, too shocked to even fight against her pushing. "What's..."

She shoved him outside her room and slammed the door shut.

Ohhh, what was she _doing?_ She desperately needed help with her math exam - she was horrible at the subject, and Haruka was the only one who seemed able to drill any concepts and formulas into her thick-skulled head.

...But... He'd seen her playing...

...No. She wouldn't think about that.

She flicked her computer off, kicked her controller under her desk, and dumped all the contents of her backpack out onto her bed. Then she dashed back to the door and flung it open.

There he stood, confused, staring at her with perplexion.

"Takane?"

"U-Um," she stammered, feeling her cheeks flush red again - _oh god how embarrassing_ \- "can you just pretend you never saw any of that?"

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "The video game? Why n-"

"J-Just...please?"

That was perhaps the first "please" she'd ever muttered to him in the entire six months they'd known each other. How could he refuse?

"...All right."

She breathed a silent breath of relief. "Okay. Okay. Um... Right. Studying for math. Let's... Let's do that."

So they did.

And when Takane went to take her exam, she did decently well.

And when she got back home from her exam, she played a video game to celebrate the end of exam week.

And when she played that video game, she couldn't help but think of a certain black-haired, black-eyed boy who'd seemed so, so hurt when she'd asked him a silly, selfish request.

She didn't have to worry over it for long, though.

"Takane! What did you get in math and science?"

She frowned and narrowed her eyes at him. "Nice to see you, too. What're you doing here?"

He bounced up and down on the heels of his feet and grinned. His wind-chapped cheeks glowed bright red; snow blew over his shoulders, head, arms, legs, but he didn't seem to notice any of it. "I thought I'd come over and see how you'd done in your exams, since I couldn't make it to school for exam review. How's semester two been going for you?"

Inviting him in was probably the polite thing to do, but Takane was never one for manners. "Boring. Most of my classes are puny - not to the point of only having eight people, though."

If he was disturbed by her decision not to let him in, he didn't show it. "Oh, really? What're you taking?"

She rolled her eyes and rattled them off, one by one: "Visual arts, geography, English, computer engineering."

"Computer engineering?" He pursed his lips. "Which period is your art class?"

It sounded like an innocent enough question, but even though she'd only known him for five months, Takane already knew better. "Oh, no. Don't you _dare_ transfer into my art class."

"Ehhhh?" Haruka tilted his head in supposed bemusement. She knew better than to believe in that mask of innocence, though. "When did I ever say I wanted to do that?"

"You didn't have to say it." Takane huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, releasing the door - and Haruka seized the chance to dash inside.

"_Hey!_"

"Mm, it's so warm and cozy in here." He unwrapped the scarf around his neck and beamed at Takane. "Thanks for letting me in, but I'll be going soon, anyway. I just wanted-"

"I never invited you in, you little-"

"-to know if you wanted-"

"Is this about exams?"

"-to go to this thing called the NKG convention with me."

He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket and waved it tantalizingly at her.

"Because if it is I swear-"

She froze.

Waaaait a minute. Had he said...NKG...?

He beamed at her, cheeks still flushed from the outdoor chill. "Well? I have two tickets, and I hear that it's really popular among gamers."

"...You got tickets...to the NKG...?"

He chuckled and handed the sheet over to her. She merely stared at it, unable to work up the will to take the page from him.

"Well, after I saw that game you were playing-" Takane blushed ferociously. "-I did some searches online and I figured that there was this thing going on in a few weeks, and I thought you'd want to go. Do you?"

The NKG convention was the only gaming convention that took place in their city, aside from the more massive cons that were less specific in genre. Takane had dreamt of going ever since she'd first begun gaming three years ago, but she'd never been able to scrounge up the fifty-some dollars necessary for a ticket.

Was this a dream?

"...Aren't tickets fifty dollars?"

He grinned at her. "I asked my parents for this as a gift for getting good marks on my exams. No big deal."

She could feel her cheeks growing warmer, hotter, redder. "W-Why would you-"

"Oh! I forgot. What _did_ you get on your exams?"

Why switch the topic _now?_ "Seventies in science and French, and eighty in math."

"Good job!" He seemed so happy for her that she almost felt suspicious. Almost. "Then this can be a congratulations prize for getting good marks. You don't have anything to do on Sundays, do you?"

Wait. Wait.

"Wait-"

"The tickets are for the thirteenth of February, so-"

The thirteenth? That was... That was only a day away from...

"That's-"

"My parents can drive us both. I'll be here to pick you up at ten-thirty in the morning, all right?"

He would be here to _pick her up?_ But that-

"I'll see you then!"

"Wait-"

He waved cheerfully at her and dashed out the door, cheeks aflame and even redder, perhaps, than she imagined hers being.

...The thirteenth. The day before Valentine's day. He'd bought the tickets. He'd planned it out. He was going to be here to _pick her up_.

...Did this... Did this count as a..._date?_

She couldn't decide. Not that day, not that night, not during the two weeks that led up to the fateful date (_no, not in that way, date as in the DAY)_ \- thank goodness that she never saw Haruka at school during that time because if she had, she would've probably exploded from sheer nerves.

In fact, she nearabout exploded when Haruka came to pick her up that Sunday. Despite having gone to sleep at only four o'clock the night before, she was up at seven in the morning, pacing in the living room, trying to organize her thoughts.

Was this a date?

Of course it wasn't, right? He'd said it himself it was just a-

Was this a _date?_

No way. It couldn't be. It wasn't like he li-

_Was this a date?_

No. No way. Just... No. Even if it was, it wasn't like she li-

_WAS THIS A DATE OR NOT?_

She was so stressed she couldn't even bring herself to play any video games as she waited for Haruka's arrival. And when he finally did arrive, ten minutes early, she almost fainted at the sight of him.

He was cosplaying Konoha from _Days of War: III._

_He was cosplaying Konoha from Days of War: III._

He was so - so - _so_ -

"Hey, Takane," he greeted her with a grin. "You ready to go?"

That was when she swooned.

Only a little, though - she didn't fall to the floor, thank God for that. And when Haruka yelped in shock at her slight faint, she smacked him on the shoulder and called him a little weak-blooded pussycat.

_Ahhh, she should've cosplayed someone too,_ she moaned to herself the whole ride there. It would look weird, wouldn't it? For one of them to be cosplaying, and the other one to not be? Especially since the cosplayer probably hadn't even played the game he was cosplaying!

That was a hasty assumption to make. When she interrogated him in the entry line to the con, he revealed that, actually, after seeing her play that gorey game that day, he'd went out and bought himself a game console as well, and purchased three of what the cashier had assured him were the goriest games in-store: Zombie Shooter, Days of War: III, and Dimensional Aliens.

The first had been so terrifying, Haruka had, apparently, had nightmares days after trying it out.

The third had just been...creepy. Once again, nightmares.

The second, though, had been bearable, and so Haruka had decided to cosplay one of the secondary characters.

"I wanted to tell you to cosplay Actor," he babbled to her as they wound their way through the gaggles of con-goers, "since she's in the game as well, and I liked her character, but I couldn't get in touch with you. We should really exchange emails, you know. Or cell phone numbers. Have you got any social media?"

Once again, Takane almost swooned from the overload of blood rushing to her head.

Haruka... Haruka did know that, later on in the game, Actor and Konoha hooked up, right...? D-Did he know that...? So... So, was he basically telling her...he wanted them to... T-T-T-To...

And as for exchanging cell numbers. They'd never discussed this before. All through semester one, their only contact had been in-person. They'd shared two of their classes, and they'd had the same lunch period, so they'd talked to each other all the time. If... If he wanted them to exchange cell numbers... Did that mean he l-liked...?

Somehow she managed to answer him with an ambiguous grunt, and then shove those troublesome thoughts to the back of her mind for the rest of the con. It was a great con - the first she'd ever been to. Just that fact was enough to make it memorable. Going with the boy she maybe-probably didn't - why was she even thinking about this anyway - liked made it even more memorable.

What ensured that that con would remain in her memory after was the fact that, when Haruka dropped her off at her house, he chirpily asked her, "Hey, you wanna go see a movie on Saturday?"

She glared at him. "Movie? What for?"

"Well..." He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled, shyly, at her. Oh, no. His face was turning pink. That couldn't be a good sign. "Well..."

What was it? "Well, _what?_"

His face reddened further. "I..."

He was really starting to worry her. She was way too tired to deal with this. "Well, you _what?_"

"I - I wanted to go on an official date with you."

_An official date_.

Her brain froze up.

A... A date. A _date_. An _official date_. He...wanted to date her...?

Wait... Wait, he'd said an _official_ date. As if an _official_ date to the movies was different from a _normal_ date.

...Wait. Wait, wait.

...Had this trip to the con been...a...d-date...?

She felt her face burn red, and before she could sort out her thoughts, really think _anything_ at all, she slammed the door shut in his face.

_Dammit. Dammit dammit - what did I do that for?_

She yanked the door back open, almost as quickly as she'd slammed it shut - or at least, so it seemed to her. But apparently, she hadn't been quite as fast as she'd thought she'd been - Haruka had somehow travelled some dozen metres in the time it had taken her to decide to answer him, and he was just opening the door to his car.

"_HEY!_"

He turned in surprise, and Takane flushed even hotter at the shock on his face.

"I - I'll come!" she shouted at him. "To the movies with you! On Saturday!"

She saw his eyes widen, and a little puff of crystallized breath escape his lips - oh, this was _so embarrassing!_ She couldn't do this anymore!

She slammed the door back shut before Haruka had a chance to respond.

Ohhhh. What had she just done?

What she'd wanted to do.

It was embarrassing, yes - _mortifyingly_ embarrassing. She almost ran away from him in the hall when he approached her at her locker the next day, only barely managed to stay put and stammer out an awkward, stilted conversation with him. It didn't last long, thank God; he'd just come over to exchange emails and cell numbers. He teased her about not having a Facebook, but her responses to his jokes were all short and stuttered; he bid her a "see you Saturday!" after a few short minutes and left.

Dammit, she'd screwed up, hadn't she? He probably hated her now. He wouldn't want to go out with her anymore. She'd pushed him away. He probably thought she didn't want to go out with him.

Nope. He texted her later that day, in class, laughing at how awkward she'd been. And this time, no longer face-to-face, she was able to send him an indignant reply.

He picked her up that Saturday with a bouquet of red roses - which she'd already told him she hated - and a merry laugh. She'd responded by pinching his cheek and shoving a death-metal CD at him, which _he_ had told her _he_ hated.

It wasn't much of a surprise - though it certainly was an embarrassment - when he asked her to be his girlfriend a mere five days after that first official date.

**THE FIRST FIGHT**

Technically, their first wasn't their _first_ fight. It was just their first major, non-playful fight.

It started off innocently enough. They were studying together in Takane's bedroom - rather, Haruka was studying as Takane groaned and cast longing looks at her computer. They'd been an "official" couple for two months, and so far, it had been smooth sailing.

Haruka frowned and tapped on Takane's homework. "Takane, you can play games after you finish your homework. This is due tomorrow, remember?"

She sneered and buried her head in her arms. "I don't want to do any stupid geography homework. Why do I need to know about the difference between an expanding or contracting population pyramid, anyway? It's not like I'm going to be some sort of population-researcher when I grow up."

Haruka suppressed a sigh. "You know how school is. If you want to be _anything_ when you grow up, you have to graduate - and to graduate, you need to pass all your courses. Including geography."

She lifted her head and glared at the offending sheet of paper. "Oh, yeah? Who says? What if I want to become a gamer when I grow up, huh? I don't need any high school diploma for _that_."

Haruka's lips thinned. "Don't be ridiculous. Being a gamer is a hobby, or a side-job. You can't support yourself by gaming. Do your homework."

"Killjoy," she shot at him. "Who says I can't? I've already come close to winning a couple of national competitions, and those were against professional players, who do nothing but game all day. If I practiced, I bet I could get first place in those competitions. They have cash prizes. I could support myself."

"Most competitions have rules," he reminded her, tense, impatient. "Previous winners are usually not allowed to re-compete in subsequent years. _Do your homework._"

"Who are you, my dad?" Takane sneered at him. "What do you care if I do my homework or not? What's it to you?"

His face hardened, and he hissed, "Takane, _do your work._"

"_No!_" she yelled back. "I'm sick of this shit! What's the point?"

Haruka's face shut down. He shoved his work into his bag and stood up. Takane watched him stalk out the room.

"Hey!" she shouted. "Where are you going?"

He didn't turn. "I have work to do. Your whining is distracting me."

And he left.

Takane glared at him as he left. Annoying prick. Acting so high and mighty, touting those grades and that intelligence like it all _meant_ something.

They'd argued about studying and gaming before. Haruka saw it as a mere hobby; Takane saw it as a way of life. They both knew that the other disagreed with them, but until that day, they'd managed to keep their arguments fairly civil. This, though, had been more intense than anything before. Whining? Her _whining?_ She wasn't whining; she was just stating the simple truth - school was useless!

They didn't speak for a week after that. And when they did, Takane was the one to initiate the conversation.

It was a phone call. Haruka picked up after only one ring.

"Takane? What-"

"Listen," she said, bluntly, mowing his words over. "My video games are important to me, and schoolwork is important to you. I get that, and you get that, too. But schoolwork is not important to me, and I don't think video games will ever be more than a hobby for you. So we need to accept that and not argue about that anymore, because we're never going to change each other's minds."

For a few minutes, all Takane heard from him was silence.

"...But school is important for-"

Takane interrupted him again. "_You_ think school is important. _I_ don't. I'll do my homework but I'll never put effort into it. You can game with me if you want, but I don't expect you to put much effort into your gaming, so you can't expect me to put effort into my schoolwork."

She heard him sigh.

"Fine. I'll try not to bother you about it again."

"If you do, I'll just ignore you."

"...All right."

And that was the end of that.

That wasn't their first argument. Their fights were never loud; they started out soft and tense, then ended off slightly louder, with one person eventually storming away and both left seething in silence.

It was usually Takane who ended the silent treatment between them, with a few no-nonsense words about both their idiocies and harsh reprimands for them both. Sometimes it was Haruka who ended the silence, whenever Takane was sulking too much over how stupid he was to end it herself.

"No, Takane, remember what you said about gaming and schoolwork that one time? We each have our own opinions and they're different. Get over it."

Firm, gentle but relentless; somehow, it always worked. They had countless little fights, a few dozen larger ones, but somehow, someway, they always managed to patch it up.

Takane wished they didn't fight as much, but at the same time, at least they never broke up. She didn't think she'd be able to handle it if that ever happened.

**THE FIRST PROPOSAL**

When Takane was in her second year of video game designing college and Haruka was in his second year of university studying some sort of science (she could never keep the sciences straight), he proposed to her.

It was totally unexpected. It was perhaps a little overdue, seeing as they'd been going steady for six years now and they saw each other every single day, despite the fact that they lived two cities apart for school.

And, embarrassingly enough, Takane was a little too shocked when Haruka popped the big question.

He didn't even make that big a deal of it. One night, over an improvised dinner of mac-and-cheese (burnt by, yours truly, Takane), he simply commented, "Hey, Takane, we should get married."

She spit out her mouthful of pasta. It landed in a nasty, gooey mess on her plate.

"E... Eh? We should...what?"

"We should," he repeated, grinning at her, "get married. Here." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a little velvet box, handing it to her. "I got a ring."

"W-W-W-" Takane's face was burning bright, bright red, and she could almost swear that the brighter she blushed, the wider Haruka grinned. "W-We're only twenty years old - it - it's too early -"

"We've been together for six years, it's not that early."

"W-W-W-We- No! No, I'm not going to marry you. I-I-I-I mean, not _now_. I mean, I _will_ marry you, eventually - I mean, I'll marry you _later_, after I'm done with school. I-I-I mean... Aren't weddings expensive? I mean..."

Haruka laughed and shoved the ring back into his pocket. "All right, then. We'll get engaged next year, when you're finishing up your diploma."

Takane flushed a deep, berry red and stared down at her plate. "I... I don't mean to make you feel bad, or anything - I - I'm just -"

"Surprised?" Haruka chuckled. "It's okay, I was expecting it."

That was how their first proposal went. Not well, but the result wasn't unexpected, either - not considering the way Takane was.

The second time he proposed was a year later, to the day. He made a much bigger deal of it than he did the first time.

Perhaps Takane should have been suspicious when he invited her out to a fancy dinner at a local four-star seafood restaurant, one she'd wanted to visit for months, on a Wednesday night. She _definitely_ should have been suspicious when he told her to come in formal wear - although, seeing as it was a four-star restaurant, she'd thought it all perfectly logical at the time. That was also the excuse she thought of when he gave her a dozen _yellow_ roses (no red roses for her) upon picking her up. He even insisted on driving, even though they both knew that years of gaming experience had made her a much better driver than him.

She only realized what he was planning to do when they'd both finished their wildberry-parfait desserts, and he got down on one knee, and said, "So, Takane, it's been a year. _Now_ will you marry me?"

And she swore to god, she could _see_ the playful, teasing glint in his eyes when he grinned up at her, holding a sapphire ring right up to her face.

The whole restaurant - or at least, the section they were sitting in - they were _all listening and watching._ They were _actually all watching_. She thought that only happened in movies, and books, and stupid stories shared over beers after exams.

She wanted to say no again. She didn't even know why she wanted to say no - she just didn't want to say yes. How was she supposed to say yes to something like this? This was a life-changing decision! Marriage - she'd never really thought about it before. What did it mean? What was marriage supposed to be like? Why couldn't she and Haruka just stay the way they were currently - dating, serious, but not married? There wasn't really any reason for it, in her mind.

But...she supposed she didn't really have an actual aversion to it. If it made him happy, why not?

Plus, there was that giant audience to think of. She couldn't disappoint them, now, could she? She'd be mortified if she did.

So she said yes. Why not?

The audience applauded for them as Haruka slid the ring on her finger, and she knew from the smugness on his face that this whole endeavor had gone exactly as planned.

She confronted him about it afterward. "Why did you do that? Why force me to agree by doing it in a public place? I would've said yes anyway, you know."

He gave her_ a look_ before directing his attention back to the road. "Really? No, you wouldn't have. You would've said no because you were afraid-"

"I'm not afraid!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Why would you have said no, then?"

She really couldn't think of an answer.

"We don't have to get married soon. I just wanted it to be official, you know." He grinned at her slyly. "This way, our parents won't mind if we move in together after you graduate. You were saying you wanted us to move in, right?"

She had been whining about that for the past few months - wanting to move in so they'd see each other more often, and about how her parents refused to let her move in with her mere _boyfriend_. As though the fact they'd been together for six years wasn't enough to convince her parents that they'd still be together in the future.

"I don't want to have to plan a huge wedding," she muttered, burying her face in the yellow roses he'd given her at the beginning of the night. "Can we just elope?"

His chuckles of delight made her blush again. "Sure! We should do that."

They did end up eloping, four months later, after Takane passed her third-year college exams. Their parents and maybe a half-dozen friends were invited to watch the exchangement of the vows, and then they all went to a restaurant together. Takane couldn't even remember where they went.

The next day, the two of them went on with their lives as normal - college for Takane, university for Haruka, except now, they had a certificate and new rings on their fingers.

**THEIR FIRST HOUSE, SORT OF**

It was another year and a half, a few weeks after Takane got her first job at the company who'd made Days of War, that she tentatively brought up the idea of them finally moving in together.

Two weeks later, they were living in a condo downtown. Together.

**THE FIRST CHILD**

Takane was twenty-seven years old and had just released her first best-selling video game (_Heat Haze Days;_ a sort of cross between an RPG, an adventure, and a puzzle game) when she found out she was pregnant.

"Haruka! Haruka, stop eating your bloody waffles! I said, I'm _pregnant!_"

He shoved another one of his bloody waffles into his mouth and gave her a bleary grin. "Krmffh. Dhuy nrrr evvg adh'zh ahh gawr ouw a vruy?"

"Swallow your bloody waffle! Oh, what are we going to do? We - I - I'm too young for this! I'm not even in my thirties yet, we don't have a house - you know it takes a million dollars to raise a kid? I read that somewhere last night."

Haruka swallowed his waffle and muttered to himself, "I'm surprised you didn't wake me up to tell me as soon as you found out."

"Shut up! I read that it costs a million dollars to raise a kid. _A million dollars!_ How are we going to afford this kid? It's gonna have to grow up on the streets because we won't be able to afford it!"

"Do you know if it's a girl or a boy?"

Takane whirled upon him and jabbed her finger into his chest. "Are you _crazy?_ It's only been a few weeks, probably! You can't find the gender until at least twenty weeks!"

Haruka picked up another waffle and commented, "You're not going to start puking all the time now, are you?"

Takane glared at him, and he cheerfully took a giant bite out of his breakfast. "How did you even find out?"

"Missed my period," she grumbled. "Haruka, what are we going to _do?"_

Haruka chewed his waffle and swallowed. Beamed at her. "We're going to be parents, I guess."

"We...!"

He checked his phone: 8:15. "Ah, I have to go now. See you later, hun."

And he left, just like that, without even giving her the customary peck on the cheek that he normally gave.

Takane stood, seething, in the kitchen for several long, long minutes. How was he not worried? How could he just ask, "What's the gender?", and just say, "We'll become parents," as if it was no big deal?

She went to work that day with a mammothian knot of anxiety in her stomach.

She threw up during lunch. _Morning sickness, hello; not quite "morning" sickness for her, it seemed._

She messed up on her programming - she made mistakes expected more of an amateur-programmer than someone with half a decade, one best-selling game, and many smaller successes under her belt. When her team leader confronted her, she fessed up and was given a day at home to rest.

She didn't have lunch that day. Or dinner. What was the point? She would probably end up puking it all up anyway. She didn't have the energy to do anything, to think about what they should do - she plopped down in bed, pulls the sheets over her head, and curled up into a tiny ball.

What were they going to do?

At some point, she heard Haruka return home. Was it six o'clock already? Where had all those hours gone?

She was certain she would hear the whirr of the kitchen fans start up, and then the popping of oil being fried. But, no; all she heard were the soft thumps and screeches of the closet door opening and closing, of Haruka dropping his bag on the couch, walking over to the bedroom.

He climbed into bed beside her, and she felt him wrap his arms around her, squeeze her tight. He buried his face in her hair; let out a shaky breath beside her ear; and Takane bit her lip, took his hand in her own, and blinked a tear out of her eye.

"It'll be all right," he murmured to her. "It'll be all right. We'll make it through, somehow. I promise."

She bit her lip and exhaled, long and slow and just the slightest bit unsteady.

They would make it through. Somehow.

_Promise._

oooooo

It wasn't the smoothest of pregnancies, not by a long run. But they managed. Somehow.

And so it was that, nine months later, in the middle of December - the day after Christmas - their daughter was born. Ayano Tateyama Kokonose, named after the protagonist of Takane's first bestselling game.

"She's going to be a little demon, isn't she," Takane sighed as Ayano sucked furiously on her nipple.

Haruka giggled and stroked his daughter's cheek - ruddy red, plump and soft as down. "Of course; she gets it from her mother."

**THE FIRST BOYFRIEND**

Takane disliked Shintaro Kisaragi from the very first moment she met him.

It was an accidental meeting, of course. Ayano was all too aware of how protective - and terrifying - her mother was. She'd taken extreme measures to ensure Takane would never learn of Shintaro's existence.

Unfortunately, those plans were all destroyed come Parent-Teacher interview night in grade eleven.

Ayano had not only inherited her mother's temperament, but also her mother's brains. She was doing...not too well in science and math. Drama, she was decent at; English as well. Other than that, her only real talent seemed to lie in marketing. It wasn't much of a surprise, really - she was an amazing people-person, so maybe Takane shouldn't have been quite so shocked to learn that her overly friendly, gentle, and trusting daughter had finally gotten herself a boyfriend.

They were just walking back to their car after an invigorating conversation with Ayano's marketing teacher - a positive ending to a night that, otherwise, did not fail to disappoint in disappointing.

"School is important, you know," Haruka told his daughter as they walked through the parking lot. "I wouldn't have gotten anywhere in architecture if I'd had bad grades in high school. If you-"

"I do try, Dad," Ayano sighed, burying her face in her scarf. "I'm just not good at math or science."

"Oh, I was _just_ like that in high school." Takane burst out into jovial laughter. "I was horrible at math and science! I-"

"Ayano?"

Takane broke off mid-sentence. That... That was a boy's voice. That was a boy speaking - a _boy_, saying her _daughter's_ name. Instantly, her protective-mother warning lights lit up.

She turned and saw exactly what she feared: A boy, just about old enough to be of potential dating-age for her daughter, staring at Ayano with wide, wide eyes lit with an all-too-familiar light. It was the light that spoke of _amazement_, of _surprise,_ of _what are you doing here?_ It screamed, _I didn't expect to see you here!_

It screamed and hollered straight into Takane's ear, _I'm glad that I managed to meet you here._

It was the type of look that only appeared in the lovesick, the infatuated, the _dangerous_.

Ayano's eyes widened upon seeing the boy.

"Sh... Shintaro!" Takane didn't miss the slight worry in her daughter's voice. "I... I didn't think you'd be here. I thought you said you weren't coming..."

He shrugged apathetically. God, that apathy. It set Takane's hair on edge. "My parents wanted to come anyway, so."

So what? _So what?_

"Hey, kid," Takane growled, crossing her arms and taking a step toward this "Shintaro" fellow. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Ayano bit her lip, and Haruka sighed. They both knew what was coming.

"Takane," Haruka said wearily, "I'm sure he's just a friend. We should just..."

She ignored him. "Shintaro, eh? How do you and Ayano know each other?"

Shintaro opened his mouth to speak, and Ayano's eyes widened in fear.

"We're-"

"Friends!" Ayano cried, dashing in between her mother and Shintaro. She held her hands pleadingly up to her mother. "We're friends, Mom, just friends! We - we have science class together."

Takane wasn't buying a word of it. "Ayano, I asked him, not you. Shintaro, how do you know my daughter?"

The bold little bastard looked her straight in the eye and announced, "We're dating."

Ayano winced. "Shintaro...what did I tell you?"

"Your mom's not that scary." He shot Takane a filthy, dark glare. "I bet I could beat her in a game of Days of War any day."

Takane was still pissed at him for daring to lay his filthy hands on her daughter, but upon hearing that name - _Days of War_ \- her eyebrows shot up. "One, two, or three?"

He rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? Number three is the only one worth anything."

"How old are you, kid?"

He rolled his eyes. "Fifteen."

He was two years younger than Ayano! Unacceptable.

"What makes you think you deserve to be with Ayano, huh?"

Beside her, she could see Haruka sigh and rub his forehead.

"The fact that we like each other and you, as a parent, do not have the right to control your daughter's entire life."

Ohh, he was sassy, she would give him that. She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Actually, as her mother, I think I _do_ have the right to make some decisions about her life. And one of the decisions is, whether she's old or mature enough to date."

"Takane," Haruka muttered, "we were in grade nine when we started going out."

She ignored him again.

"Here's a deal. If you can beat me in _Days of War: III_, hardest difficulty, city terrain, multiplayer, I'll let you go out with her. If you lose? You won't even _talk_ to her again."

Shintaro raised an eyebrow at her. What on earth did Ayano see in this cocky young brat? "You sure about that bet, lady? You look a bit old for gaming."

"Shintaro, don't-"

"Takane, please..."

Neither of them listened. They merely seethed at each other, sneering with disgust.

"Thursday afternoon," Takane snarled. "Bring your controller."

"How about I bring my console, too?" Shintaro growled back. "Yours might be a bit too outdated for the latest version of the game."

Takane could feel a vein pulse in her temple. "Bring a box of tissues, too. You're going to need them - you'll be bawling like a baby when you lose."

"Oh, I'll bring them, so that _you'll_ feel better about yourself when you get crushed by a _kid_ like me."

She took a threatening step forward. He mirrored it.

"What was that, punk?"

"You heard me, old lady."

"You better prepare yourself for the-"

"_Oooookay_," Haruka exclaimed, grabbing Takane and dragging her back. Ayano did the same for Shintaro. "It's time for us to be heading home now. Are you going to be fine if we leave you, Shintaro?"

The boy nodded. "My parents are just going to the washroom. They'll be right back out." And he rolled his eyes as if to say, _The incompetence of parents - what can we do?_

Takane wanted to punch that smug look off his smug face, but Haruka and Ayano weren't having any of that - they dragged her home, where she fumed in silence.

She would beat the socks off him when he came over on Thursday. She would. Teach him to mess with her daughter.

In fact, Shintaro ended up winning that video game match - only by a hundred points, _only a hundred points_ \- and when the end-of-game screen flashed on the TV, he gave her a smug, cocky grin that she was already beginning to hate. _Little bastard, I'll show you what-_

Once again, Ayano and Haruka had to drag the two of them apart before their heated yells and glares could escalate into a brawl.

**THE FIRST BETRAYAL**

Her daughter was leaving. Ayano was moving out.

Part of Takane realized that she really shouldn't be upset that her twenty-one year old daughter had finally decided to be independent and move into her own condo with her nineteen-year-old fiancé, but another part of Takane felt betrayed by Ayano's decision. She was just up and leaving her parents - just like that. What was this? How had her daughter grown up so quickly?

When she whined to Haruka about it the night after Ayano's departure, he merely laughed at her.

"You really haven't changed, have you, Takane?"

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

**THE FIRST GRANDCHILD**

Ayano was only twenty-four - even younger than Takane had been! - when, two months before her enormous white wedding, she gave birth to her first child.

A girl, with green hair and enormous black eyes. They named her Tsubomi Kido because of the hair - the green fuzz coated Tsubomi's entire scalp. Shintaro swore that rainbow-coloured hair was a Kisaragi-family genetic trait - he offered his sister, Momo, neon orange-haired, as proof. Takane wasn't quite sure she bought it.

"Shintaro will never admit it to you, but he likes the idea of giving our kids a last name as a middle name," Ayano confided to Takane as she nursed Kido in the hospital. "Although why he chose Kido, I have no idea."

Takane stared down at the infant. Her grandchild. Takane was a grandparent. She didn't feel that old, though - she was only fifty years old. That wasn't that old, was it?

The baby _\- Tsubomi, the baby's name was TSUBOMI_ \- stared up at Takane with her eerily wide, dark eyes, completely silent. Not even crying noisily as babies normally did.

Takane had the feeling that Shintaro and Ayano were going to raise an..._interesting_ family.

"Are you going to continue the tradition of only children?" Takane commented to Ayano, who merely laughed.

"We'll see," she said mysteriously, stroking Tsubomi's head. "We'll see."

The next child came ten months later. (How were Shintaro and Ayano finding the time to produce all these children, especially with all the hectic wedding planning they'd been enduring for the whole year preceding Tsubomi's birth, and the two months afterward?)

He was a gold-haired, gold-eyed little devil, just as prone to bite his caregiver's fingers and snicker at their pain as he was to bawl his infant little eyes out, or giggle and snort at his caregiver's antics. His name was Shuuya Kano Kisaragi, and Takane could tell from the moment she saw him that he had inherited the stubbornness genes of both sides of the family, and possibly even the temperament genes from his maternal grandmother. He was going to grow up to be an absolute rascal.

Next - a year later to the week - was a black-haired, hazel-eyed weeping child, the most innocent and peaceful baby Takane had seen, and also possibly the wimpiest. He was named Kousuke Seto Kisaragi.

Takane was beginning to feel older and older with each child that Ayano popped out. Only fifty-four, and already with three grandchildren! She begged Ayano not to have any more, to which the brunette laughed.

"Even if I wanted to have any more - which I really don't - you're not in any position to tell me what to do. I'm an adult now, Mom. As Shintaro said: You don't have the right to control my whole life!"

Takane shook her head and muttered under her breath, "That kid has been nothing but a bad influence upon you."

"Not a _kid_ anymore, old bat," Shintaro muttered under his breath as he entered the room. He leaned over and gave Ayano a gentle kiss on the forehead. She giggled and flushed pale pink; Takane scowled and looked away.

She still didn't like the idea of her precious Ayano being taken away by this cocky, annoyingly arrogant Shintaro fellow - but she couldn't deny that he loved her, in his cocky, arrogant way, and she also couldn't deny that he was one of the best programmers in her team. (She'd hired him for her video game developing team. Why not? He certainly had the skills.)

She didn't think Shintaro would ever deserve her daughter, but he came pretty damn close, so she supposed she could accept it anyway.

**THE FIRST DEATH**

Haruka was only sixty-one when he passed away.

Pneumonia. Weak immune system. Infection. Old age.

_Old age?_ He was only in his sixties. _Old age?_ He wasn't old enough to go.

Wasn't the average life expectancy somewhere in the high eighties? Why had he gone so young?

Takane couldn't quite believe it. Couldn't accept it, either. She lay in her cold, empty bed each night, imagining that, at any moment, Haruka would walk in, slip in beside her, wrap his arms around her, bury his face in her hair.

He never did, of course. She supposed she shouldn't have been so surprised.

**THE FIRST FUNERAL**

The entire family attended. And by the entire family, Takane meant herself, Ayano and Shintaro, their three children - seven, eight, and nine years old by that point - as well as Shintaro's sister, the neon orange-haired girl named Momo, and two guests along with her. Takane didn't know who they were. She didn't particularly want to take the effort to find out, either.

There were more people, of course. Colleagues. Friends. A few distant cousins on his side of the family.

Takane didn't really want to go. If she went, she was certain that her heart would crumble even further, from fragments into irreparable dust - but Ayano insisted.

"It'll help, Mom," she said, dragging a black dress over Takane's head, shoving some sort of veiled hat on her head. "Trust me."

So here she was, boiling in the summer sun, staring, not listening, as some ridiculous man in grey robes droned on about nonsense. Watching the coffin - red oak; Ayano had picked it out - be lowered into the earth. Watching dirt cover it up. Watching people lay down bouquet after bouquet of flowers. Irises. Lilies. Tulips. Sunflowers.

Someone put down a single yellow rose.

_You don't like red roses? What about yellow? I'll give you those instead_.

True to his word, every anniversary, Haruka had presented her with a single, long-stemmed yellow rose.

Takane still had a box filled with dried yellow roses under her bed.

She turned and walked away. Ayano watched her go, and didn't stop her.

**THE FIRST STORY**

"Gramma," Shuuya complained, barging into Takane's room - she jumped slightly at the noise of his entry - "Tsubomi's bullying me again."

Takane sneered at him. "Really? What did she do this time, tell on you when you ate the cheesecake your mother's been saving up for Christmas?"

He ignored her taunt and plopped down in a plump armchair. "Aw, don't be like that, Gramma." He grimaced. "How did you know about that? You never go into the kitchen."

"Your mother's been complaining to me about your antics ever since you were the size of a pen. Of course it was you."

He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Coulda been Kousuke."

"He's too nice for that."

"Coulda been Tsubomi."

"As if."

"Coulda been Dad."

"I wish it had been."

A giant grin spread over Shuuya's face, and he leaned in toward Takane. She leaned in toward him as well. Her bedroom was small enough that when each of them, seated in an armchair, leaned in, the tips of their noses almost brushed against each other.

"Dad's such an _idiot_, isn't he?" Shuuya whispered to her, and she chuckled and nodded in agreement. "He thinks he's so high and mighty. I don't know why Mom married him."

Takane rolled her eyes. "I could never figure it out, either. Lord knows why."

"If you didn't like him, why'd you let them marry each other?"

Shuuya stared at her with a twinkle in his eyes, a twinkle that reminded her all too much of Haruka. This young, blond devil's grin was sharper, more devious, than Haruka's had ever been, but there was that same excitement, same slight mischievousness, same youthful, innocent joy.

Takane opened her mouth to speak.

"_Shuuya!_"

The boy turned just in time for the stuffed dinosaur to smack him in the face. He howled with pain.

"_Owwww!_ What was that for?"

Tsubomi stood in the doorway, huffing and red-faced from both fury and exertion. She drew back her other hand, clenching a giant stuffed elephant, and hurled it, too, at Shuuya.

This time, he ducked.

"You told Mom _I_ was the one who ate that cake!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

Tsubomi stormed across the room and grabbed handfuls of Shuuya's cheeks. "You're such a little baby! You're already ten years old, you shouldn't be doing stupid things like this anymore!"

Her hands twisted, twisted, on the lumps of skin and flesh pinched tightly between her fingers.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Stop it, you're going to rip my cheeks off!"

"Actually," Takane said dryly, watching the miniature brawl with amusement, "I don't think that's possible. You'll probably just end up with droopy cheeks."

One more twist - _"LEGGO!_" - and Tsubomi released him. "Don't you _ever_ try pinning the blame on me again," she threatened him, and turned to Takane. "What were you two talking about?"

Takane smirked. "I was going to tell him about why I let Ayano and Shintaro get married."

For a moment, her brow creased in confusion. Then it smoothed out, and she blinked. "Oh, you mean Mom and Dad?"

"Yeah. It's a pretty short story."

Tsubomi nodded and dashed out the door, calling over her shoulder as she went, "Wait a moment!"

Several minutes later, she returned with Kousuke in tow.

"Okay," she declared, plopping both her and her youngest brother on the ground. "Tell us how Mom got married to someone as awkward and stupid as Dad."

"D-Dad isn't stupid," Kousuke protested weakly. "He's really-"

He received three smoldering hot glares and shrank down.

"I was just defending him," he muttered. "Cuz he's our dad."

Tsubomi rolled her eyes; Takane scowled; Shuuya snickered and said, "He doesn't deserve Mom."

Kousuke stuck out his tongue at his siblings and turned to his grandmother. "How did Mom and Dad meet, Gramma?"

So she told them.

She told them about how Ayano and Shintaro met in math class, grade ten, semester two. Ayano had been surprised that someone two years younger than her could be so smart; Shintaro had been surprised that Ayano had wanted to talk to him at all.

She told them that for their first date (which Ayano planned and instigated), they went mini-golfing, and Ayano completely destroyed Shintaro, despite fretting all the time that her parents would find out that she wasn't actually at a study group with a group of classmates.

She told them about how Shintaro battled her out in a bloody game of _Days of War: III_ for the right to date her daughter - and won, but _only by a hundred points, only by a hundred bloody points!_

She told them about how, several weeks after that fateful battle, Ayano came home in tears, because of some fight between her and Shintaro. She'd refused to tell her parents what the fight was about. Takane had been prepared to hunt the boy down and chop off his head for causing Ayano to cry, but several days later, a bouquet of red-and-yellow lilies arrived in the mail for her, along with a letter that Ayano refused to let her parents read. Two days later, the two teens were going steady again.

She told them about how Shintaro and Ayano moved in together for post-secondary education. Takane had disapproved, Haruka had laughed and agreed to the concept, and the two of them had done it anyway.

She told them how Shintaro proposed to Ayano four times before getting accepted - four times, because the first three times, he stuttered over his words so much that Ayano couldn't tell what he was saying, and he ended up giving up on saying his well-rehearsed speech properly. He ended up mailing the proposal, written out, along with the ring, to their apartment, and waiting for Ayano to check the mail and find the letter.

She told them how anxious Shintaro had been when he'd discovered he would be a father - _we're pregnant? We're pregnant? No - you're pregnant - wait - no - what?! You're kidding, right? I'm barely twenty, I can't be a dad - you're barely twenty, you can't be a dad - no, a mom - we can't be parents!_ \- and how unruffled Ayano had been, even going so far as to laugh at Shintaro's constant panic.

She told them these stories, and many, many more.

**THE FIRST FAREWELLS**

She said her first goodbye at the age of five, to a father lost to this thing called a "car accident".

She said her next two to her grandparents at the age of seven.

The rest slipped her memory.

Teachers, friends, classmates, cousins moving out of state. Celebrities. More friends.

The next one she remembered was her mother. Takane was fifty-seven; her mother was eighty-nine.

Then it was Haruka, at sixty-one.

And now she was about to say some more.

**THE LAST FAREWELLS**

Shuuya and Tsubomi both had an odd affinity for gorey video games. They played them, incessantly, starting from the day that Takane told them the story of how Shintaro won permission to date Ayano.

The first games they played were, of course, the ones that their grandmother and father had developed. They were suitably impressed with those, and decided to become serious gamers - as serious as they could get at the age of twelve and thirteen, anyway. And when Takane offered to pull out a few of her childhood games and consoles for them to play on, they eagerly accepted. The three of them - four, if Shintaro was up for it - gaming on Wednesday nights became a weekly ritual.

One night, Takane decided they were old enough for _Days of War: III_. She dragged it out of some dusty old cupboard and shoved it in her outdated GameStation console.

Tsubomi and Shuuya were both instantly hooked by the gore, the violence, the voice acting, SFX, fuzzy graphics, and more. The three of them played the game all the way until two in the morning before Takane noticed it was _way_ past the two children's bedtimes.

"No more for tonight," she announced, shutting off the console as both Tsubomi and Shuuya exclaimed their protests. "We'll continue next week. This is a forty-hour game, kiddos. You're not finishing it in one night. Now, come on, off to bed - you've got school tomorrow, and you know how your dad feels about that."

Grumbling, they both obligingly handed over their controllers and sulked out of her bedroom.

"Next week," Shuuya called over his shoulder as he exited the room, "you and Dad should face off again."

Takane grimaced at him. "Little rascal."

He winked at her and shut the door.

ooooo

Ayano was away on a business trip - she was a marketing executive of some big-shot company, and she'd gone off to Paris for an executive meeting.

"I'll be back in three weeks, Mom," she'd told Takane as she'd kissed her on her wrinkly cheek. "Watch over the kids for me, okay? Especially Shuuya, you know what he's like."

Takane had smirked at Ayano. "You sure you want _me_ to watch him? Not the best idea."

Ayano had wrinkled her nose at her mother and gone downstairs, presumably to give all her children a huge hug and her husband a kiss before leaving.

ooooo

Shintaro was working on some big project. Something called Oculus Rift. Apparently it was the first big step toward 3D gaming - Takane didn't really get it, but what did that matter? She wasn't a game developer anymore; she didn't need to understand it.

Shintaro gave her a copy of it, the Friday after Ayano left for her business trip. "It's just a prototype," he explained, hands stuffed in his pockets, as Takane turned the curious gadget over in her hands. "I thought, you're a batty enough old woman, and you still play video games, even though your skill is somewhat questionable - may as well make you one of the beta testers."

Takane shot him a glare and slipped the thing over her eyes. "Hmm. Maybe sometime next week. Wednesday."

Shintaro smirked. "Tsubomi's been asking me how good I am at _Days of War: III._ Specifically, she's asked me whether I'm better than you at it."

Takane pulled off the Oculus Rift-prototype to glare at him. "You wanna verse on Wednesday? I can beat the pants off you any day."

His sneer widened. "I don't recall you beating the pants off me even once."

"I was going easy on you."

"Really? Then why were you always so frustrated each time you lost?"

"Didn't want to make you cry, kid. I know how insecure you are."

He opened his mouth to retort - and his face turned bright red.

"You..." He looked away, and his face reddened further. "You... You're a good person." Takane blinked at him. What was with this sudden change in attitude? "I don't think either Ayano or I, or our, kids, ever say it enough, but... We appreciate everything you do for us."

She snorted - and then snorted again, just to try to hide the fact that her cheeks, too, were turning faintly pink. "What're you talking about, kid? You don't need to say it at all. I already know that you bumpkins can't manage without me."

Shintaro took a deep breath and looked up. Looked her straight in the eye, and said, simply, firmly, "Thank you."

How was she supposed to respond to that? With rapidly reddening cheeks, she nodded. Grunted. Looked straight in his eyes.

He looked back, nodded, and walked away.

ooooo

That night, she crawled into her cold, empty bed, and waited to fall asleep.

She imagined she could hear footsteps outside her bedroom. The slam of a door. The screech of metal on metal as a closet door slid open and closed, the thump of a bag landing on the sofa, the padding of slippered feet toward her bedroom.

She imagined she could hear the door squeak open.

She imagined someone was walking toward her, someone with a familiar bright, cheery smile on his face, tall and lanky, pale beyond belief, black hair mussed from a long, tiresome day at work.

She imagined that he slid into bed beside her. Pulled the covers over him. Wrapped his cold, ice-cold, arms around her. Squeezed her tight.

She imagined she took his hand in her own.

She imagined he buried his face in her hair.

She imagined that he breathed, soft as a winter breeze, into her ear, "_It'll be all right. You'll make it through. I promise._"

And she believed him.

* * *

**A/N:** So. That happened.

Yeah, Takane's dead now.

Concrit always welcome, even in the form of flames!


End file.
